Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll This is the easy cheese cookbook that was mentioned in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (reviewed September 7). Carroll is obviously in love with milk in general and cheese in particular. She starts with a short history of cheese, outlines the cheese-making process, and goes over ingredients and equipment. We learn that there are three levels of milk pasteurization – regular, high heat, and ultra. Regular, which you can do at home with raw milk, kills your ordinary pathogens. High heat can’t be used for cheese. This isn’t labeled, either, so you just have to experiment. Finally, ultra pasteurizing, the results of which comes in tetra packs, destroys both the proteins and nutrients in creating a shelf-stable product. Her instructions are clear, if filled with cheesy puns. Soft cheeses can mostly be done fairly quickly, some needing overnight draining, but not a lot of hands-on labor. The equipment starts at a low-temperature thermometer and cheesecloth, both easily available. Citric acid is supposed to be in grocery stores seasonally, for tomato canning. Some of the soft cheeses also require a bacterial starter (like yeast for bread making) which would need to be bought on-line. Mostly, though, they look doable and yummy – I’d say weekend level, as opposed to weeknight or holiday weekend. The 30-minute mozzarella tried was truly fabulous. Hard cheeses, by contrast, look hard – more like a full day to weekend of work to start with, plus daily attention for a week or two, and a couple times a week for a couple months. They nearly all require the special starters, as well as cheese presses and mats. They still look delicious. After these recipes are some for other dairy products – buttermilks, yogurt, kefir, etc. There are also recipes for dishes in which to use your homemade dairy products, and profiles of small American cheese makers. If you can make bread or beer and like cheese, give this a try.
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen Two estranged sisters forge a bond they never had as children in this new book of magical realism. Older sister Claire Waverly grew up living in her mother’s car, while Mom shoplifted a living and slept around. When her mother took her to the family home in North Carolina just before her younger sister’s birth, Claire vowed never to leave home. Sydney Waverly, however, followed in her mother’s footsteps, down to running back to Bascom with a young daughter in tow. The whole town knows that Claire has the Waverly touch – dishes cooked with the flowers from her garden will do strange things. But Sydney never thought she was a real Waverly. Claire learns to expand herself and Sydney finds her roots; they both find a little romance, as well, though that’s not the main point. I really enjoyed the relationships and the magic; the dialogue caught me the wrong way just a couple of times. The character names seemed like they were pulled right off our library storytelling roster, which was quite amusing. And for all these small flaws, this was one I ignored chores to read, a rare occurrence.
Porn for Women by the Cambridge Women’s Pornography Initiative. Photographs by Susan Anderson This little gift book was shown to me by my good friend M., who always recommends the best books. Apparently, the Cambridge Women’s Pornography Initiative did a survey to find out what really turns women on, and then sent their photographer out to photograph a few fine-looking men doing just those things. One man picks up a garbage bag, while the caption on the facing page reads*, “As long as I have two legs to walk on, you’ll never take out the trash.” Another holds out a piece of cake saying, “Eat it! I don’t like to see you so thin.” One man in bed lifts up the covers: “Is that the baby? I’ll go get her.” The Amazon entry is full of reviewers saying that this is either a joke or rampantly sexist. While it is both funny and sexy, I also think it’s fairly accurate. I’ve read of many studies showing that women find a man who will help with housework and be considerate of their partners a bigger turn-on than, well, sex with no foreplay, or porn designed for men. The result is a turn-on for (straight) women you could safely show a child. No, this shouldn’t be the fantasy that porn implies, and yes, women do enjoy real sex – but this is still awfully fun. And kudos to my love, and to the partners of so many of my friends, who embody the sexy ideals expressed in this book. 
The Scandal of the Season by Sophie Gee In 1711, a young Alexander Pope sets out for London against his father’s will. He hopes to make a name for himself as a poet; his father remembers all too keenly Catholics being burned in the streets and forced to live at least ten miles outside of the city. Meanwhile, his childhood friends Teresa and Martha Blount are also heading to London for the season, where Teresa hopes that their cousin Arabella, the acclaimed belle of the season, can introduce them to the best in society. The Jacobite rebellion is being plotted, some Catholics supporting a return to a Catholic reign, while others want only to blend in with society. Amid the political turbulence, Alexander watches as Arabella becomes enmeshed in a passionate affair, so shocking that it will become… the scandal of the season. This origin story for The Rape of the Lock is full of intrigues both social and political, and delightful for anyone who enjoyed books like Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver Kingsolver, her husband, and two children set out in this vivid nonfiction adventure to spend and document a year spent eating only locally produced food. After years spent living in suburban Arizona, the family moves to rural Appalachia, with the intent, Kingsolver says, of living in a place that contains more than one of the three basic necessities of life. Starting the year with the first asparagus and some trepidation, they head to the farmer’s market to see what they can find. What they end up with is delicious bounty – different things at different times of the year, to be sure, and no bananas – but always good, varied food in the peak of flavor. Trying for the first time to raise enough to eat year-round rather than a small vegetable garden provides room for meditation on the loss of vegetable varieties and the fragility of farmers’ livelihoods, while harvesting their turkeys and chickens brings up the issues of carnivory and the difficulties with both CAFOs and vegetarianism. An early autumn trip to Italy shows a culture where food and culture is still deeply connected to the land. As Kingsolver narrates the year, Hopp steps in as “Dr. Science”, with factual sidebars, while teenaged Camille provides a week’s worth of meals with recipes for each month. It can be a little preachy, but if you already believe that the earth and our diets are in need of some help, it’s inspirational rather than disturbing. All the authors are clearly passionate in showing that eating locally is delicious and doable by anybody with a will and a local farmer’s market or garden. After listening to the audiobook, with Kingsolver’s gently twangy voice, and I were both inspired – I to tomato canning, and he to trying home cheese making, as well as more frequent trips to the farmer’s market. For anyone who cares about good food, this is an essential read.
The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron The most recent Newbery award winner apparently got pulled from a number of libraries (mostly school, I think) because it includes the shocking word “scrotum” on the first page. As overheard by our heroine. It is not mentioned again until the last chapter. Anyway, being the curious type, I thought I would investigate on behalf of you, my loyal readers. 
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson For those of you going through Harry Potter withdrawal, may I suggest Peter and the Starcatchers? This fast-moving adventure with a sense of humor takes us back to a time when Peter Pan was just Peter, an orphan with a dismal and probably short future. Peter, still the leader of a small gang of orphans, is being sent to a barbarian king on a faraway island, onboard a small and dingy ship. Also onboard is young Molly, apprentice Starcatcher. Apparently, when stars fall on earth, the starstuff causes magical mutations, often harmful, so that it must be removed from earth by the Starcatchers before it can cause too much damage. Sure enough, a large and leaky chest of starstuff features prominently in the plot, as does the evil Captain Stache and his pirate crew. The plot will keep you on the edge of your seat and the characters are charming and believable. The book, for me, restored the magic of Peter Pan that was missing when I reread the original, with its old-fashioned mores. The savages are real people; Molly’s aim in life is not to become a mother ASAP. It’s an origin story well worth reading.
Jack Plank Tells Tales by Natalie Babbitt Long-time favorite Natalie Babbitt (Tuck Everlasting) returns with this delightful collection, sure to be a hit. Cutting the microphone, Jack Plank is a retired pirate, looking for a new career. Every day, he heads out with his landlady’s daughter to try to find a job. Every night, he returns unsuccessfully, but with a tale to tell of why that particular career could never work for him. He couldn’t possibly do work that involved crossing a bridge, for example, because of the experience that a shipmate had with something closely resembling a troll in Nova Scotia, and another shipmate had an experience that put him off wigs forever. Jack Plank does find a job in the end, of course, but by that time, all we want is more stories. The stories belong to that wonderful variety, which are entertaining for an adult without being too scary for the beginning chapter book reader.-
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